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What are you all Talking about!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I don't know about what type of game everyone is expecting, but I really looked forward to this game only to find out that it got bashed by a lot of people. I just think that most people are spoiled in the types of games they plan...sure there are going to be bugs, but one has just to get around them. I personally find the new highlights "wonderful" and think that the old stuff (which many people have accused of being a con) still great. I play this game with some of my friends when I am at school, and we play it while we do our homework. We have played mostly every single game known to date, and...well...I think this is one of the greatest. I like the features about the game which everyone seemed to harass. I think it's a great sequel to the game.

Great way to waste time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I've played this game a lot since it came out and have not had the problems some people have mentioned. It's extremely addicting and that can be a bad thing. Next thing you know you've been playing for 6 hours straight. My only complaint with it is that the scenarios are basically just different maps and you do not get the setups of history as in Civ II. That's a major letdown as far as I'm concerned. However, there are many improvements also, the main one for me being empire boundaries.

Good, but not great, sequel.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Nice features: great graphics, streamlined trade and diplomacy, better research tree explanation, queues for production in towns.

It's great that the game has sixteen cultures, each different, so that there's a different play each time. The new resource system has three types. Some are what we're used to, "bonus" squares. Some are luxuries, connect them by road and all cities are happier. Some are strategic, you need horses somewhere to make any horse units, saltpetre to make gunpowder based units. It adds to the game, though I wish the game would explain why we cannot make items we have the technology to make (maybe greyed out units with explanation).

The drawback - the old strategies are no good anymore. You'll have to change the way you play Civ to do well here. Not a big problem, but be aware of it.

The problems - production queues cannot be changed by any means I have seen or read (yes I read and reread the rules). You cannot access the civilopedia from the 'production screen'. The rush job button is unmarked and simply says "shields" when you hold your mouse over it. Many worker (engineer/settlers who cannot build towns) orders are not available via the icons, e.g. automate to upgrade this city, automate clean pollution.

Plus, armies, which seems to be very important, are not at all user friendly. There is no explanation in the civilopedia on how to "load" units (put them in the same square and choose "load" from _unit_ orders). There is no apparent way to switch units once the army has them loaded. In short, the documentation on how to use armies is poor.

The worst - for those whose play, like mine, was peaceful until a massive technology advantage had been built up, your style is unplayable now. You'll find fairly early (between 1000 BC and 1 AD) that you run out of things to make in town and can only make units. What you end up with is RTS style play, build a stack of guys and rush the enemy. The streamlining of other aspects of the games will often leave you with only units to build, and since making cash gets you little gold per turn, you'll make units, then you'll need something to do with them.

All in all it's still Civ, it's still Civ3. I don't mean to imply that it's bad, hence the four stars. A bad Civ is better than the best of most other genres. However, veteran Civ players need to know that there will be frustrations.

Save your money and get Civilization: Call To Power

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I was eagerly anticipating this game. I was a big fan of the origional Civilization for MSDOS, and then a big fan of Civilization: Call To Power. However, after purchasing this game, I must say I am very sadly disapointed.

First of all, the game has tons of bugs and technical problems. Entries in the Civilopedia that are larger than one page, simply are printed down beyond the Civilopedia panel and down below the screen. There is no way to scroll down to read it. There is no way to set the resolution of the game. None. You play it in the screen resolution they want to you play it in.

Second of all, the artwork is seriously lacking. The artwork is on par with a game that came out maybe 2 or 3 years ago. Civilization: Call To Power had much better artwork. They have eliminated the cool movies that you used to get with each wonder or new technology. Now, all you get is a little icon that shows up in your city information page.

Third, the game is lacking. Civilization: Call To Power had hundreds of units, hundreds of city improvements, and took you from the ancient past into the future where you could build undersea colonies, space colonies, etc. Some of the funnest moments of Civilization: Call To Power involved huge outer space battles. Civ 3 on the other hand, only has 60 units, and increadably SIMPLIFIED technology tree, less civilizations. IT IS TOO DARN SIMPLE!!!!

Fourth, Civilzation 3 doesn't have multiplayer!!! Darnit, Civ: Call To Power had it 3 years ago!!!!

My final thoughts are this: The makers of this game realized that people like me, fans of computer strategy games, would buy this game nomatter what. So they dumbed the game down, hoping to win over some of those twitch gamers, and hopefully get the game ported to Playstation 2 or Xbox were the real money is. The next day after purchasing this game, I uninstalled it and installed Civilization: Call To Power! In my opinion, this 3 year old game beats this brand new game in every single aspect. That includes graphics!!! Maybe in 1996 this game would be great, but in 2001, this game is a sorry disapointment!

Little improvement on the original or the sequel

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Civilization was tons of fun. Civilization II made some notable improvements to combat, but added a great many units, city improvements, and government types. The greater complexity burdened the game and the attempt at 3D perspective resulted in ugliness. Civiliation III tweaks some details and added one huge innovation. The most annoying of the tweaks is that the "Phalanx" has become the "Spearman" and the "Legion" has become the "Swordsman." Come on, people!

The big innovation is "culture." If you played Alpha Centauri, you noticed political borders. One's cultural border is one's political border in Civ III. Certain improvements produce a certain number of culture points per turn. When the city produces a certain number of cumulative points, the cultural border of that city will expand, which may expand one's political border. In rare circumnstaces, one civilization will engulf a neighbor's city.

Espionage is so expensive in Civ III as to be rarely worthwhile. The spaceship takes longer to build but, as soon as it's launched, the game is over. One does not win for reaching Alpha Centauri, but rather for just launching the ship.

Bombardment totally changes combat after gunpowder. Ships, aircraft, and artillery units may bombard a neighboring square.

The greatest virtue of Civ I was the simple yet realistic design, which did not depend on graphics or burden the processor. Civs II and III added complexity but did not improve the game overall. It seems the game is simply beyond meaningful improvement. Do not buy Civ III if you have one of the previous versions. The graphics are better in the more recent version, but game play has undergone major changes--not always for the better.

Engrossing but sometimes tedious gameplay

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

From the point of view of someone who has never played a Civilization game before, or a turn-based strategy game, I found this game to be extremely deep, complex, engrossing, if not a little tedious and monotonous at times. It took a bit for me to get the hang of the game and the documentation isn't very helpful for first-time players. But it doesn't take too long to understand the process and it gets fun after that. The depth of the game is amazing. You must strike the right balances between culture, resources, luxuries, trade and diplomacy, military, and more to be successful. There are many levels of difficulty to try your hand at. There are multiple paths to victory so many different strategies might work depending upon whether you want to take a militaristic, diplomatic, scientific, or other approach. You can take detailed control over your cities or relinquish much of the control to governors with some general direction. The play can get a little tedious when you have to control every little movement, or decide on everything your cities will build but the depth of the game and all of the variables that you must manage and keep track of make it very challenging and engrossing. I still have a lot to learn, but if you want your $40-$50 to go a long way in providing hours of fascinating gameplay then you won't be disappointed here. You will be disappointed if you are looking to master the game quickly and not think too much in the process.

Good game, but hard to get used to

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 05, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I understood Alpha Centauri farely easily, this interface is different and less straight forward. Graphics and animation is great. I think the queue is harder to figure out than alpha centauri

Late Night Addiction

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 13, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is My first game in the CIV series. It has the elusive "just one more turn" factor. The first night I played It was 3:30 AM before I realized the time. The game is easy enogh to learn quickly, but hard enough to stay interesting.

Wait for the price drop!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 06, 2002
Author: Amazon User

If you've owned Civ 2, then Civ 3 will not impress you. Wait until the price drops on this one or you can get Civ 3 and Civ 3:PTW together as one package.

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